A Vision for Better Business Relationships: Art Papas and Arianna Huffington at Engage 2016

Bullhorn Engage 2016 is here! Earlier today, the 1,000 attendees gathered in Boston heard about Bullhorn’s vision from CEO Art Papas, got a peek inside new Bullhorn innovation, and learned business (and sleep!) lessons from Arianna Huffington. Whether you’re with us at Engage or you’re following along from home, here’s a recap of Thursday’s keynote messages.

Art Papas: The Bullhorn Vision

How do you engage the most important constituents in your work life: customers, leaders, and talent.

That was the question Art Papas asked to kick off Engage. He shared three themes that are shaping today’s business.

1. We’re living in an age of transparency.

We’re being held accountable (by customers and by employees) in ways we never were before. Social media and online review platforms have amplified word of mouth. Good news spreads fast, and bad news spreads faster. It’s not just consumers rating restaurants or hotels. B2B software buyers can visit software review sites and find out what it’s really like to be a Bullhorn customer. Prospective hires can read employee reviews on Glassdoor.

But leaders can’t control every single customer interaction. Somewhere, one of your employees might be doing something that’s disgruntling a customer. These days, you’re only as good as your worst customer interaction.

You can think of your customer experience like a train. The train looks good. It’s nice and shiny and clean. Everything’s working. Then, someone doesn’t return a customer’s message. Or one employee leaves a bad review on Glassdoor. So, a little spot of graffiti shows up on the train.

What happens next matters a lot. A little graffiti isn’t a big deal, but if you ignore it instead of quickly cleaning it up, the train quickly gets covered in graffiti.

What’s the solution? Technology alone isn’t the fix, but it can play a role to warn you about the graffiti you need to pay attention to.

2. Robots are here, but they’ll never take the place of relationship builders.

Think about an industry that was nonexistent in the 1960s: Staffing. Now, contingent staffing is a $120 billion business.

Another industry that was nonexistent just a decade or two ago: Robotics. Art has been interested in the rise of robots for several years. What’s crazy is how quickly robots are improving. They’re sophisticated, they can learn and they’re taking humans’ jobs. Robots are currently replacing accountants, telemarketers and factory workers. That’s a little scary, but there’s a silver lining: Robots won’t ever take the place of humans for relationship building. When people get bad medical news, or need help finding a new job, or need advice about improving their business, they want a human’s help.

In a nutshell: If you’re in sales, you have a future. If you adopt the adage that we’re all in sales, we all have a future.

3. Work needs purpose.

The conversation about work culture has gotten a little cacophonous. Core values, purpose, culture…is this just about millennials? Art says no. We’re all working all the time, thanks to our always-on smartphones with hundreds of red notifications. When you feel over-worked and exhausted, it’s natural to come to work, look around, and wonder what the mission really is. Maybe you hear talk about core values, but you don’t really see them in action.

Gallup research shows companies need a mission people want to get behind — beyond just making the boss rich. With tools like Glassdoor, they can find a company with the mission they want.

If you’re a nonprofit, it’s easy to clarify your mission and rally people around it. But how can B2B companies define a meaningful mission?

At Bullhorn, we came up with a mission that really resonated: Create an incredible customer experience.

We also created new core values that are designed to reflect the behavior we want from employees. These values are based on what we’ve learned over the past decade about what customers like and what makes them want to come back and do business with us again. We got really specific about what to do — and what not to do. We score people on those core values every quarter.

Our incredible customer experience cycle helps employees see how the mission relates to them. If we live the mission, then we have raving fans, who grow the business by telling their friends, which means we have to hire more people, create management jobs for our top performers to move into, we can create better products and services and drive growth and momentum in a positive cycle.

Art drives home the core values that lead to incredible customer experiences by publicly recognizing Bullhorn employees who have done great work.

The results: The customer experience index went off the charts, sales went through the roof, Bullhorn’s NPS grew, and the employee experience went way up — Bullhorn used to have a 3.0 score on Glassdoor, and now has a 4.5.

“For me as a leader, I feel better about what I’m doing. I get my energy from this. It’s really rewarding. Culture isn’t just touchy-feely; it’s about actually running a better business,” Art says.

Turning Vision into Innovation

After Art outlined the vision and mission that drive Bullhorn, Matt Fisher and Bryan Roy took the stage to share how Bullhorn is translating that vision into innovative new products and features. Their key focus: using technology to create “radical transparency” and better attract talent and engage people.

One of the themes of Art’s keynote was how much we’re all working. We’re always connected to work and we’re bombarded by notifications and messages. Our Thursday afternoon keynote speaker, Arianna Huffington, dug into how we can all cope and improve: Sleep!

Arianna Huffington: Leadership and the Importance of Sleep

Arianna Huffington, author and founder of The Huffington Post, has a new book, “The Sleep Revolution.” She realized nine years ago that something about her hard-charging, busy career had to change. She collapsed from exhaustion and after seeing many doctors, the diagnosis was simple: She needed to sleep more.

The result of that moment nine years ago has been a deep dive into the science of sleep. “Humans aren’t machines,” she says, and in order to build productive workplaces, we need to realize that and make some changes to our always-connected work culture.

She shared a few changes her team has made at The Huffington Post to help employees rest, recharge and come to work as their best selves:

They banned devices from meetings. “We give people beautiful leatherbound notebooks to take notes. If you have something more important to do, don’t come to the meeting. But if you come, be present.” She says her leadership meetings have gotten shorter and more productive because of the device ban.

They give employees enough time to really rest and recharge, especially on vacation. They borrowed an idea from the German automaker Daimler. When an employee puts up an Out of Office email message, it’s some version of: “I’m on vacation, if this is urgent, please contact [another contact person], or email me again after my vacation end date. This email will be deleted.” When employees return from vacation, they do so to an empty inbox, and they’re not tempted to check and respond to email while they’re gone.

They focus on building teams. Everyone needs someone they can pass work to. “If you’re a leader and you haven’t built a team to delegate things to, you’re failing as a leader.” After her recent vacation, she was humbled to find that everything ran just fine without her.

They opened two nap rooms. At first, she said people were hesitant to be seen taking a 20-minute nap in the middle of the work day. But now, the rooms are always full as people take an opportunity to hit the reset button. She predicts that nap rooms will become as universal as conference rooms in offices.

“Sleep affects every aspect of our health, productivity, and happiness,” she says. She encourages leaders to read her book for sleep advice. Her number one tip? Don’t sleep with your phone. Her bedtime routine includes “gently escorting” all of her devices out of her bedroom, taking a hot bath, and letting the day end so she can recharge and prepare for the next day.

“Burnout isn’t necessary to succeed. Sleep is becoming a competitive advantage. Time we sleep is time we can connect with ourselves to allow deeper wisdom to take over.”

She looks forward to a newly developing culture of sleep, where it’s easier to recruit and retain talent, be productive and creative, and have the resilience we need to manage the change and acceleration we’re all facing.

Categories

Categories

Search

Search

We understand that it’s not business as usual for staffing professionals at this time. Bullhorn is committed to enabling you to continue to provide a positive experience for your candidates and clients.

ABOUT BULLHORN

Bullhorn is the global leader in software for the staffing industry. More than 11,000 companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to power their staffing processes from start to finish. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs more than 1,000 people globally. To learn more, visit www.bullhorn.com or follow @bullhorn on Twitter.

Get Your Price Quote Today

Call us to schedule a demo. (888) 465-4838

Thank you. We will be in touch shortly!

Jonathan Novich

SVP of Product and Salesforce

Jonathan Novich is SVP of Product and Salesforce for Bullhorn, the global leader in CRM and operations software for the recruitment industry. A staffing technology innovator, he has developed broad and deep product and technical experience consulting to staffing firms over the past 15 years. Jonathan has acted as an independent consultant for some of the largest staffing companies in the world and advised companies on acquisition targets.
At Bullhorn, he oversees product initiatives as more than 10,000 staffing companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to drive sales, build relationships, and power their recruitment processes from end to end. He graduated with honors from Princeton University, earning a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Computer Science and a certificate in Operations Research.

Ed Holmes

SVP, Workforce & Revenue Cloud

As Bullhorn’s SVP of Workforce & Revenue Cloud, Ed drives the company’s middle office strategy and overall product offering. Ed joined Bullhorn as part of the Peoplenet acquisition where he spent 7 years as the President/CEO leading up to the acquisition in late 2017. Prior to joining the Bullhorn family, Ed has spent his career designing, building and managing technology solutions for numerous Fortune 500 companies. He has been a Partner in an ERP-focused consulting firm, a CIO for a global pharmaceutical company, a supply-chain leader for a retail company and the leader of a services company from its inception to $50MM in revenue. Ed was born in Florida but has spent the last 20+ years in Atlanta, GA. Ed loves to play golf, tennis and basketball and occasionally gets out kite boarding when the wind is just right.

Ed holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and an MBA from Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

Brian Sylvester

CFO

Brian Sylvester is Bullhorn’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) with more than 15 years of financial leadership experience. Brian leads Bullhorn’s financial, accounting, and legal functions. Prior to becoming CFO, Brian spent three years at Bullhorn in various finance & accounting roles. Prior to Bullhorn, Brian was Corporate Controller at Pegasystems, a global provider of business process management software where he scaled the finance organization during a period of 2.5x revenue growth. Brian began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in their technology audit practice.

Brian is a CPA in Massachusetts, has a Master’s of Science in Accounting from Boston College and a Bachelor’s of Science in Accounting from Bryant University.

Tamsyn Attiwell

SVP, Customer Success

As the Senior Vice President of Customer Success, Tamsyn leads Bullhorn’s Services and Customer Success teams. She is responsible for the successful delivery of all products and services globally and is committed to creating and maintaining incredible long-term customer experiences in the Candidate to Cash process. Tamsyn has been delivering implementations for over 25 years with companies such as SAP, Ariba, Zuora and Apttus: specializing in HR, Payroll, Procurement and Quote To Cash capability. She trained as a software engineer after studying Maths, Statistics, and Computing in England.

Art Papas

Founder & CEO

Art Papas is the Founder and CEO of Bullhorn, Inc, the global leader in software for the staffing & recruitment industry. Art was the original architect of Bullhorn’s flagship Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which now helps more than 8,000 companies around the world run their businesses. Art is the Chairman of the Board at Career Collaborative, an organization that teaches unemployed and underemployed adults how to build careers that change lives and strengthen families. In 2014, Ernst & Young named Art an EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winner in New England. Prior to starting Bullhorn, Art started his career as a software engineer at Thomson Reuters. Art is a graduate of Tufts University, holding a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics.

Matt Fischer

President and Chief Technology Officer

As President and CTO, Matt leads Bullhorn’s architectural, technical, and software design and development efforts. He also directs the product management team’s work defining product strategy, and global customer support and success. Since joining Bullhorn in 2004, Matt has held a variety of leadership positions managing the growth of various technical and services teams, including Vice President of Professional Services. Prior to Bullhorn, Matt worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers, specializing in systems process assurance for such companies as Fidelity and State Street Global Advisors. Matt holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from Boston University’s School of Management.

Mike Restivo

Chief Revenue Officer

As Bullhorn’s Chief Revenue Officer, Mike drives the company’s global revenue growth. Mike was one of the first 15 team members of Bullhorn Inc. in Boston and relocated to London in 2010 to start up the International team. In his 6 years in London, Mike drove regional expansion into the Netherlands, Germany, Singapore, and Australia. He has supplied cloud-based solutions to recruitment consultancies in over 50 different countries worldwide for the past 10 years. Mike was born and raised in the Boston-area where he grew up an avid sport fan. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Babson College.

Kristin Machacek Leary

Chief People Officer

Kristin oversees Bullhorn’s human resources function in her role as Chief People Officer. Kristin joined Bullhorn in 2020 and is responsible for helping Bullhorn scale to the next level, build leadership capacity, and accelerate growth in global markets. Kristin brings to the role over 20 years of experience leading high-potential companies through breakthrough growth and brings a depth of knowledge in organizational design, scalable processes, and flexible systems culled from some of the most successful global companies in the world. Leary joins Bullhorn from Hitachi Vantara, where she served as Chief Human Resources Officer, and before that she worked as Chief Human Resources Officer at Forcepoint, a private equity-backed company with 3,000 employees operating in more than 45 countries. She has also worked at high-growth enterprise technology companies like Alphatec Spine, Boston Scientific, and Hewlett-Packard.

Peter Linas

Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and International

Peter oversees Bullhorn’s international operations across EMEA and APAC in his role as Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and International. Peter joined Bullhorn in 2009 and was responsible for its highly successful UK launch. In addition to growing the international team to over 50 staff and establishing Bullhorn as the UK’s market leading recruitment software in fewer than three years, Peter has expanded Bullhorn’s reach into EMEA and APAC and achieved a user base of more than 10,000 international users. Prior to taking on the launch of Bullhorn in the UK, Peter spent 20 years working in the recruitment industry and held a number of senior director roles before moving into the technology space.

Ryan Murphy

Executive Vice President of Enterprise and Salesforce

Ryan Murphy is the Executive Vice President of Enterprise and Salesforce. He began his 10-year career at Bullhorn as a finance and sales intern, affording him a 360-degree view of the software-as-a-service industry and Bullhorn’s business model. Prior to his current role, Ryan served as an Enterprise Account Executive where he honed his customer-first leadership style and championed Bullhorn’s offerings to its most strategic clients. Today, Murphy is charged with leading the enterprise strategy and go to market for both Bullhorn and Bullhorn for Salesforce, enabling customers to maximize their investments on both platforms and deliver an incredible experience to their customers and candidates. Ryan has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Boston University.